1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus such as an ink jet printer and a medium loading apparatus included in the recording apparatus.
2. Related Art
In general, an ink jet printer has been widely known as a type of a recording apparatus. The printer supplies ink to a recording head and ejects the supplied ink onto a recording medium through nozzles of the recording head so as to perform printing. Among such printers, there is a printer that uses roll paper having a large size as a recording medium (for example, JP-A-2009-226920).
In the printer as disclosed in JP-A-2009-226920, a roll paper supply unit includes a movable holder, a fixed holder, and a guide rail arranged between both the holders. When a user performs a set operation of a roll body (roll paper) onto the roll paper supply unit, the roll body in which a fixed flange and a movable flange are fitted to both ends is placed on the guide rail along the guide rail.
Thereafter, if the movable holder is moved to the side of the fixed holder along the guide rail in a sliding manner, a driving shaft of the fixed holder and a driven shaft of the movable holder are inserted into a shaft hole of the fixed flange and a shaft hole of the movable flange on the roll body, respectively. With this, the set operation of the roll paper is completed.
In the printer as disclosed in JP-A-2009-226920, the driving shaft of the fixed holder and the driven shaft of the movable holder project to the inner side of the roll body in the axial line direction all the time. Therefore, in order to place the roll body between the movable holder and the fixed holder, the length of the roll paper supply unit needs to be made larger than at least a sum of the length of the roll body, the length of the driving shaft of the fixed holder, and the length of the driven shaft of the movable holder. Accordingly, there arises a problem that the roll paper supply unit is increased in size, and eventually, the printer is increased in size.
It is to be noted that there is the same problem on recording apparatuses having a configuration in which roll paper is supported by shafts in addition to the above-mentioned ink jet printer.